The subject matter described and/or illustrated herein relates generally to electrical connectors, and more particularly, to electrical connectors that include both signal contacts and power contacts.
Electrical connectors are commonly used to interconnect a wide variety of electrical components. Some known electrical connectors provide both signal paths and electrical power paths between the electrical components. More particularly, some electrical connectors include a single housing that holds one or more signal contacts and one or more power contacts. The signal contacts electrically connect to corresponding signal contacts or signal conductors of the electrical components to provide a signal path between the components. Similarly, the power contacts electrically connect to corresponding power contacts or power conductors of the electrical components to provide an electrical power path between the components.
Presently, the demand for higher performance electrical systems continues to increase. For example, electrical connectors are being tasked with being capable of accommodating ever increasing signal data rates between the electrical components of an electrical system. Examples of such an increased signal data rate include Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 10 GbE. But, the signal contacts of at least some existing connectors that provide both signal and power paths may be incapable of handling such increased signal data rates. As the power contacts of such electrical connectors are still adequate, the connectors are not replaced. Rather, the existing connector is still used to provide the power connections, while a separate second connector is added to the system to handle the higher speed signal connections. But, the second connector undesirably adds weight and an extra component to the system.